Andersson has been an established figure on Sweden's dance scene for decades, but he is little known in Hungary. He brought his troupe's new piece Ready to Explode to Budapest's Trafó House of Contemporary Arts on Friday.
The piece is about madness, magic, simple Scandinavian design, pure dance and the release of suppressed energy. We meet all of these elements, to different degrees, in the relatively short 50-minute production, which deeply reflects the world of its creator.
Andersson, whose has an extraordinary feeling for music and rhythm, deals with big and imposing forms in his pieces. His spaces are illuminated or themselves illuminate. They are open and transparent.
In the first half of the piece, the dancers move on a stage in front of what could be a wide film screen. In the second half, they dance under a suspended circular form in dimly lit space.
Andersson's dancers work with real effort, but there is still something missing. They do not draw themselves into what we are seeing. The choreography is impressive, but it fails to move us. It lacks voltage. Although the voltage in Eastern Europe may be too high. Fair, hard work is taking place on the stage, and the space is impeccably beautiful, but it lacks character and appears self-serving. The gunpowder is missing.
Author: Tamás Halász / Photo: Dániel Kováts
